charges brought against him, and the peers hesitated to adjudge his offences treason.

But as

in the case of Strafford a bill of attainder was at length brought in and finally passed on 4th January 1644-5. Even his opponents must confess that 'nothing in life became him like the leaving it.' A pardon from the king in his favour was produced to the Houses, but it was disregarded by them. His petition, touching yet dignified, that in consideration of his age and calling, his sentence might at least be commuted, was also disregarded, and it was only after a second application that the House of Commons acceded even to his modified request that the manner of his death should be changed, and he should not be hanged but beheaded. So on Friday 10th January the aged primate was brought forth for execution on Towerhill in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators estimated in one of the newspapers of the time at more than 100,000. His last address was a sort of discourse founded on Hebrews xii. I, etc., which was very variously reported in the royalist and parliamentary newspapers, and surely it was small wonder if, as the old man gazed on that sea of upturned hostile faces, his memory misgave him, or that even with the aid of notes he gave but imperfect utterance to his thoughts. Then came a brief but affecting prayer as to which there is no

material variation,1 and with a single blow of the executioner's axe his grey head was severed from his body, and his spirit passed to its rest. The House of Lords had been far from keen in the prosecution of this last of statesmen-prelates, feeling that however grievous his errors had been, there was now but little risk of his doing further harm to the State. Several even of the Commons are said to have shown a disposition to relent. But the majority, Presbyterians as well as Independents, could not be persuaded to let the prosecution drop. The feeling of the London populace and of the more fanatical sectaries against him was very strong, and had been intensified by the many satirical pamphlets which had been put in circulation since his fall. The Assembly has been blamed for doing nothing to allay the excitement and prevent the scandal of the chief minister of the Church being doomed to such a fate. Yet neither their own minutes nor the Journals of the Houses furnish the least evidence that as a body they did

''Lord, I am coming as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of death, before I can come to see thee, but it is but umbra mortis, a mere shadow of death, a little darkness upon nature; but thou by thy merits and passion hast broke through the jaws of death; so Lord receive my soul and have mercy upon me, and bless this kingdom with peace and plenty, and with brotherly love and charity, that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them, for Jesus Christ's sake, if it be thy will.'

aught to help it on. Even as to individual members I doubt if the expressions Professor Masson has quoted from the sermons of two or three of them were meant specially to refer to him, and not rather to those who were directly responsible for the war, and had actually shed blood in it or in the Irish massacres. The most melancholy utterances in the sermons of Woodcock and Stanton reappear in several of those preached in the following year, when no such reference can be imagined, and are but the emphatic expression of the opinion then all but universally held and acted on that they who shed innocent blood could only atone for it by their own. The Scots also have been severely blamed, but with still less occasion. They no doubt felt keenly at first and resented bitterly the sufferings his policy had entailed on them. But Baillie, who knew and did not hesitate to speak their mind, shows no such resentment. He says expressly, when intimating to his correspondent in Holland that the trial had begun, 'He is a

1 The only discourse I have met with which openly vindicates the deed, and glories in it, was not preached before the Houses of Parliament nor by a member of the Assembly of Divines. Its title is 'Jehoiada's justice against Mattan, Baal's high priest,' and its spirit is as atrocious as its title. The author does not give his name, but only his initials, J. H. Even if he was the Julius Herring, still more if he was only a relative of the Julius Herring who was the subject of Laud's coarse and unfeeling joke, 'I will soon pickle that herring,' one cannot speak of his act but in terms of the strongest reprobation.

person now so contemptible that we take no notice of his process.' And at a later stage, when speaking intemperately of the 'malicious invectives' of one of the prelates of his own country, he adds, ‘I could hardly consent to the hanging of Canterbury himself, or of any Jesuit, yet I could give my sentence freely against that liar's life.' The insinuation against Henderson in the Oxford royalist paper of the day, is but one of its many slanders against the man who was its ecclesiastical bête noire as unmistakeably, as Lord Say and Seale was its secular one. But by whomsoever the deed may have been prompted, and however it may have been excused at the time when the memory of his rigour and cruelty was fresh, it will now be all but universally admitted to have been a blunder as well as a crime. It brought deserved discredit on the Parliament, revolted not a few of its friends, exasperated a number of the best of its opponents, embittered greatly the relations between the leading clergymen on both sides, and more than almost any other single occurrence destroyed for a generation all hope of honourable compromise and cordial co-operation between them in the cause of religion, and the interests of highest concern to their common country.

LECTURE VIII.

TREATISES ON CHURCH-GOVERNMENT, CHURCH CENSURES, AND ORDINATION OF MINISTERS.

IN my last Lecture I gave you a succinct account of the Directory for the Public Worship of God prepared by a special committee, and after careful revision adopted by the Assembly in 1644. I am to-day to speak of the treatises on churchgovernment, church censures, and ordination of ministers, which were prepared almost simultaneously with that Directory. Two or perhaps, more strictly speaking, three treatises on these subjects were drawn up by the Westminster Assembly in the course of the first two years of its sessions. The one to which it first addressed itself was that for which it began to make preparations immediately after receiving from the two Houses the order for its members to 'confer and treat among themselves of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to God's holy word and most apt to procure the peace of the Church and nearer agreement with other reformed Churches. It may be said to have formed the chief occu